Thursday, September 22, 2016

Apparently Mark Zuckerberg intends to cure the world of all disease by the end of the century.

Call me a cynic, but I suspect that diseases (in some shape or from) will be with us as long as we exist as a species and most certainly as long as so many people waste time and mental resources on Facebook!

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the campaign group Action on Smoking
and Health (Ash), said:

“The continuing decline in smoking prevalence is
a tribute to many years when successive governments have implemented
comprehensive and progressive tobacco control strategies, including tax
rises, mass media campaigns, anti-smuggling measures, smoke-free laws,
advertising bans, and last but not least getting rid of tobacco displays
and glitzy tobacco packaging.”

It's all very well to crow about the "effectiveness" of plain packs, but ASH seem to have "forgotten" that plain packs didn't come into the UK until May 2016. The decline in smoking stats refer to 2015 and earlier.

Most likely the increased use of vaps accounts for the decline, certainly not plain packs.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Free runners in Horsham
town centre should be ‘seized by police and prosecuted’, according toBrian Donnelly (Horsham's cabinet member for finance and assets).

Parkour, which involves negotiating between obstacles by climbing or
jumping, is set to be banned in public spaces in the town centre under a
Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) approved by Horsham District
Council September 7.

The order also covers anti-social drinking of alcohol, anti-social use
of vehicles and horse-drawn vehicles, control of dogs, and dog fouling
across the district.
Anyone found guilty of breaching the PSPO without a reasonable excuse
could be fined, or issued with a fixed penalty notice.

It seems, as ever, an overreaction to lump free running into the same category as dog shit and horse drawn vehicles.

Additionally, does anyone envisage a police officer ever being able to catch ("seize") a freerunner?

This is simply another unnecessary, unenforceable law. In the event the freerunners cause damage we have laws such as trespass, criminal damage etc that can deal with them.

Monday, September 19, 2016

It is a very sad indictment of the way that we live our lives that firefighting resources are being called out more often to assist in lifting obese people.

The number of obese people being rescued by firefighters has increased by more than a third in the past three years.

The Telegraph reports that rescuers
often have to use lifting equipment and special slings because people
are too large to move independently, while windows, walls and interior
fittings sometimes have to be removed to create enough space for obese
people to be extracted.

In the past year, there were 944 rescues involving obese patients,
compared to 709 in the period from 2012 to 2013, according to figures
obtained by the BBC.

Ironically The National Obesity Forum said the increase in the figures was due to the fact that obese people are getting bigger, rather than there being more people who are obese.

This in itself rather calls into question the effectiveness of Nanny's continual nagging about how much/what we eat and our weight!

Monday, September 12, 2016

The researchers, from the University of Sydney, analysed data from
nationally representative health surveys carried out in England and
Scotland between 1994 and 2006.

They found that, after taking into account external factors, there is
a direct association between drinking larger amounts of alcohol and
death from all causes and from cancer.

The researchers found that the risk was reduced/eliminated among those who are physically active, which they define as requiring
at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity every week.

Fair enough, as it rather knocks on the head Nanny's doom laden lectures telling us not to drink.

However, is it not possible that those who are active are generally healthier than others, and that it is that general level of good health that motivates/energises them to be active (ie energy and activity are by products of good health).

As such is it not the old story that some people will die younger than others, no matter what, and that "one size fits all" recommendations for booze/exercise do not work?

Wednesday, September 07, 2016

Oh dear, as an avid G&T drinker I am ungemused to see that Nanny is fretful about the use of lemons in cocktails.

It seems that according to some "research" originally published in the Journal of Environmental Health in 2007, and recently republished by Elle, the skins of lemons harbour all sorts of microbes (courtesy of the barman's/barmaid's sweaty hands).

Seemingly almost 70% of the drinks ordered in the test of 21 bars in the USA produced some sort of microbial growth, from 25 different microbial species.
Well, I have yet to die from a dodgy lemon slice in my G&T. Thus I will continue to have ice and a slice, and risk it!

Monday, September 05, 2016

It would appear that modern life is killing children, with the number of youngsters
diagnosed with cancer rising 40% in the past 16 years because of
air pollution, pesticides, poor diets and radiation.

That at least is what researchers at the charity Children with Cancer UK believe, they claim that there are now 1,300 more cancer cases a year compared with 1998.

Apparently, the increase is most notable in teenagers and young adults aged between
15 and 24, where the incidence rate has risen from around 10 cases in
100,000 to nearly 16.

Researchers say that although some of the rise can be explained by
improvements in cancer diagnoses and more screening, the majority is
probably caused by environmental factors.

Please note that word "probably", ie they are not certain!

Anyhoo, if the researchers are to be believed amongst the list of causes are:

Alternatively we could go back to Victorian times, before most of these factors existed (air pollution aside). Unfortunately the infant and child mortality figures were off the scale in those days, and the chances are you would die of TB, cholera, pneumonia, measles, whooping cough or simply "old age" at around 35.

Nowadays most babies born are likely to survive into teenage-hood, hence the statistical increase in those with cancer.

In other words, because we are living longer and our babies don't die at birth or in infancy, we have swapped one form of death for another.

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